The Wildest Woods

by S. K Munt

  ‘Or you’ll what?’ Cairo snarled, and my own physical reaction to Kohén’s fucking royally superior tone caused me to clench my fists tightly, because I’d learned that bottling up my fire that way would ensure a more powerful flume of it to explode from my hands when it was finally released.

  Come on! I silently screamed at him, amazed that he was just gaping at me. Tell me you’re sorry, or tell me that you’re sorry that you ever met me… let me see your true worth now that you no longer have your crown and your fence and your mother’s skirts to hide behind!

  ‘Imprison us?’ I prompted him, my voice breaking. ‘Rape us? That’s what you do best, Prince Barachiel, is it not?’

  Kohén’s brilliant blue eyes were spider-webbed with red lines, but they widened as he lowered the gun, looking astonished. ‘What? My lady… no!’ He pulled the scarf back over the stiff half-collar of the asymmetrical jacket and I saw that his thick dark hair was dusty and covered with debris, and his jaw covered with dark stubble. ‘No that’s not who I am, not anymore!’ His face collapsed in grief as he looked from Cairo and then back up at me. ‘I don’t want to hurt anyone! I just want to protect my friends! Is that so wrong?’

  ‘My lady?!’ I repeated, bewildered. Oh My god! Who did he think he was kidding?

  SOMEONE HE DOESN'T RECOGNISE SO SHUT UP LARK! Sam bellowed into my head so loud that I flinched in shock and pain. My friend appeared on the landing of the tower with a gun trained on the back of Kohén’s head, and I was so relieved to see that he was unharmed that I could have sobbed. HE’S GAPING AT YOU BECAUSE HE THINKS YOU’RE THE MOST STUNNING CREATURE HE’S SEEN IN HIS LIFE, AND IT HAS DISARMED HIM! BUT HE’S NOT LOOKING AT YOU AND SEEING LARKIN WHITTAKER- HE’S LOOKING AT YOU AND FEELING LIKE A HEEL FOR HAVING MAIMED SOMEONE THAT YOU OBVIOUSLY CARE ABOUT!

  What?! I looked from Sam to Kohén, feeling like I was generating a bit of an electrical charge myself in lieu of such a denouement. Kohén looked from me, to my brand then over to the women that had huddled behind me, and his face softened- his blue eyes becoming glassy.

  ‘I know what I did to my Companion- and obviously you’ve all heard about it too,’ Kohén bent down and put his gun on the ground near Cairo before holding his palms up in surrender and just like that, his pride and his survival instincts seemed to dissipate even though the metallic golden strip that concealed the zipper on his jacket gleamed in the sunlight, communicating who he really was, even if he didn’t know it. ‘But I have no memory of it, my lady, and I have been working hard to make amends. I don’t blame you if you cannot believe that given how atrociously I have just behaved, and I don’t know what rumours you have heard all the way up here… but I’m a soldier of God’s now, and I only want to do what is right.’

  What the fuck? What does that mean?

  I don’t know! Sam responded. I’m trying to dig up truths out of his head but there are black spots everywhere! The last time I encountered a mind like this, it belonged to someone that had been badly concussed!

  I wet my lips, tensing when Cairo sat up and scowled over at Kohén, making his disbelief apparent. ‘You have no memory of what, exactly?’ my pirate demanded, and the man that had grown to take the place of the adolescent prince that I had once loved and hated in equal measure held up his hands helplessly.

  ‘Of anything between the ages of five and seventeen,’ Kohén said softly, and I saw from Sam’s widening eyes that he was telling the truth. ‘I almost died at my Companion’s hands, and deservedly so, from what I’ve heard… but although I survived that night, my memories of her and everything that happened while she was in my life did not.’ He frowned over at Cairo. ‘You haven’t heard that?’

  Cairo shook his head, while I turned to ashes from the inside out, incinerated by my own shock. I’d asked Satan to remove Kohén’s feelings for me so I’d expected him to hate me now and wish death upon me- but if she’d simply erased me, then where did that leave me and my memories? My feelings? My shattered soul?

  ‘It leaves you at an advantage, and gives you a second chance to do what you failed to do the first time!’ Whispered a voice in my mind, and I turned to ice when I realised that it was my mother’s voice, not Sam’s. It didn’t hurt my head, but my heart felt like it was being crushed by a curled fist. ‘I have not sent Kohén to you to die, my child- but to provide you with a Barachiel heir that will not only break the malison against them, but guarantee the safety of your kingdom!’

  My knees turned to jelly. What? No! You have to be kidding me! I can’t get pregnant anyway, and I’d sooner die than-

  Lark! What’s wrong? You’re turning white!

  ‘I’ve seen it, Larkin!’ Satan spoke over the top of Sam, blocking him out. ‘I’ve seen you holding a tiny Barachiel baby girl, and although I know you will be very cross with me for forcing your hands to reach for him, it is my duty to keep you and your fate, on track for the good of mankind. So it is with a heavy heart that I-’

  Don’t! Please!

  ‘-order you to seduce Kohén Barachiel by sunrise-’

  ‘NO!’

  ‘-or face the consequences of refusing to grant my wish!’

  No! No, NO! Tears filled my eyes, and though Cairo reached for me, I couldn’t feel his touch at all, or see him through my misery. No, anything but that!

  ‘You mean- you’d sooner end up in the ocean in front of Eden two years ago, then uphold your end of the deal?’ Satan asked, and I felt every cell in my body shut down as I realised that my demonic mother was exactly that, and that I’d been a fool to ever believe otherwise. ‘No, I don’t believe you will.’

  ‘Is that girl okay?’: was the last thing I heard Kohén ask, before I turned and raced back towards my tower room, fighting to keep my wings concealed with every step that I took, but I did not hear his answer.

  I was crying too hard to hear anything over my pounding heart.

  *

  ‘You can’t do it!’ Cairo hissed in response after I’d caved in and had hysterically explained what it was that Satan had asked me to do. He’d been following me around my room as I wore a path into the stone floor, but his grand hands caught my shoulders then and yanked me back against him. ‘You can’t!’ I moaned when I felt his lips rake across the back of my neck coupled with his hot breath against my skin when he sobbed: ‘I won’t let you! You’re mine now!’

  I bent and twisted myself out of his grasp, clutching at my heart. God wasn’t it bad enough that I had to go through this without dragging poor Cairo through hell behind me? The guilt was excruciating! ‘No! You don’t get a say in this because I’m not yours…’ I did an about-face and regarded him tearfully, croaking: ‘I’m hers, and I will be until I’ve repaid my debt to her- and I have no one to blame but myself! I knew the other shoe would fall- that I’d never get a fairytale ending!’ I dragged my hands down my face and shook my head at him. ‘I knew it,’ I croaked, ‘and yet I tried falling in love anyway.’ I swallowed hard and stepped back away from him as his beautiful grey eyes went from being like a thunderous sky, to an overcast one. ‘I am sorry, Cairo. I wanted to say three different words to you today… but I am sorry are the only ones that I can offer you now. That and ‘I told you so,’ because I did warn you that I wasn’t the happily ever after type.’

  ‘No…’ Cairo sounded so desolate that my lungs tightened. ‘No, this can’t be how it goes! You may have promised her two more wishes, but she promised me a soul mate and I know that you are her!’

  ‘Maybe that’s true,’ I shrugged. ‘But how long did she promise you’d have her for, Captain Kingslater? When did she specify that we’d marry and make love and have a family and grow old together? She didn’t, did she? She said you’d find me- she never said you’d get to keep me though, did she?’ I arched an eyebrow at him, and he winced. ‘There’s always a ‘but’ with her, always fine print, and always an agenda. You get this- but you must take this with it…’ I pressed my hands to my heart again. ‘Words cannot express how happy you have mad
e me, Cairo, but happiness cannot be measured by time- only depth of contentment, and it’s so often fleeting.’ I sighed. ‘I have known that kind of happiness with you, but if I learned anything from the Six Books Of Creation, it’s that nobody can wound you quite as deeply as your soul mate can and that sometimes, two halves of a whole are happiest when they are separated.’ Like Kohén and Kohl!

  Cairo’s face grew tight. ‘So that’s it?’ he demanded, aghast. ‘You’ll tell me better to have love then lost and then just give up?’ He launched himself at me, gripping my wrists tightly and shaking me. ‘Listen to yourself! Where has my fearless warrior queen gone? Where is your defiance? Why won’t you fight for us the way that you’ve fought for your people? Do I mean so little to you that you can just cast me aside with a proverb or two to soften the blow?’

  ‘I am still fighting for my people, Cairo! When I agreed to be their queen, I swore to protect them before myself!’

  ‘I am one of your people too Larkin so protect me! Say no to her, and we’ll weather the consequences of that together-’

  ‘WE CAN’T!’ I exploded, and he jerked back when my hands burst to flames inside his. ‘If I say no to her, time reverses, remember? How will you fight at my side when the clock winds back to the night I left Eden? You were probably halfway between Pacifica and The Bay Of No Return, and I was caught up in a tsunami of Kohl Barachiel’s anger that was about to propel me right at his feet, and his soldiers too! If I say no to this demand, I’ll end up right back there and you’ll end up too far away from me to help, and without any idea that I even exist... don’t you get it? If I refuse her, all of this-’ I motioned to my tower room, ‘-goes away! And if you’d have me do that, you don’t love me at all!’

  ‘Of course I don’t want you to do that!’ Cairo cried. ‘But-’

  ‘There’s no but!’ I shook out my hands and hugged myself, sobbing. ‘It’s Kohén now, or Kohl then and I won’t be vilified for choosing the lesser of two evils!’ I turned away from him, staring at my stupid, perfect furniture and realizing that Satan had given me so much because she’d known how much she was going to take back, and for no other reason. The clock on my wall said that it was two in the afternoon, but it felt as though sunrise was rushing at me more quickly than the sunset was, and my heart was ticking more quickly than the second hand could ever hope to move. ‘This isn’t a choice I’m making,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s an order that I’m following. It’s a stupid, thoughtless order that won’t change a fucking thing but how much I hate myself… but now that it’s been given, it cannot be retracted, and when I think of why I know it won’t change anything… I can’t help but think that’s maybe it’s for the best that this has happened.’ I swallowed down bile. ‘Perhaps this is the reality check I needed in order to remember myself- and cut you free before I can hurt you any more than I already have.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Larkin… you’re speaking in riddles.’

  I wiped my tears out from under my eyes and turned back to face the man that had saved my soul. ‘I’m not going to be able to get pregnant tonight because I can’t fall pregnant, Cairo.’ I was trembling again. ‘Not with a Barachiel heir, and not with a Kingslater one, either.’

  I was not surprised when he turned grey, and then red at my words.

  36.

  Raphael

  Kohén Barachiel

  I watched in shock as the beautiful courtesan turn and fled from us, taking my breath with her. I’d been beside myself with grief just moments before, but now I was beside myself with shock. Who was she? Why had I looked into her eyes, and suddenly felt my will to live being restored to me?

  And why had it felt like when she’d looked at me, something inside her had recognised something inside me as well?

  The massive knight that she’d been tending to got off the ground, shot me a lethal look and then hobbled after the girl, crying out to the King’s Guard to: ‘Keep him out of my fucking sight unless you want me to start a war!’ and I swallowed hard, wishing that I’d chosen someone smaller and less dangerous-looking to piss off. Then again, if I’d hit the pirate with the same dose I probably would have killed him, so it was probably for the best that I’d electrocuted someone massive enough to withstand what was left of my charge.

  Knight, pirates, beautiful maidens… where the hell was I? What kind of enchanted, magical bubble did this land exist within? Arcadia was beautiful, no doubt, but this was an absolute paradise that was practically drenched in romance. Snow capped mountains dipped to kiss the emerald green foothills that led to the storybook-looking village, which was equal to Arcadia in majesty without the too-uniform infrastructure, and lake water the colour of glacier ice shimmered behind a chateau so grand and glorious that it robbed me of my breath, even though I was still hundreds of metres away from it.

  That lake… I shook my head in disbelief now that I was really seeing it. That’s the lake I was meant to find, right? I was on this path all along!

  And the people… my God! Everybody in Arcadia always looked clean, healthy and tidy, but the people here dressed so beautifully that I expected that at any moment, a page would turn beneath me, flipping me out of one fairytale and into another. Oh, and their companions! Never had I imagined that I’d meet a Companion that would make the Arcadian ones look underwhelming in comparison but here they were- powdered, coiffed, rosy-cheeked and… running from me.

  Fuck! Why was I considering running after that strange girl? What the hell was wrong with me? I rubbed my pounding head and groaned, telling myself to pull it together. That was when I realised that a lot of other people were thinking the same thing and so I looked up, trying to get a grip. I expected to find them all glaring at me but instead, they seemed to be having meaningful conversations with one another using only their eyes while my own soldiers wilted on the grass around the tower, giving up completely now that they’d seen me drop my weapon. Macklin was rubbing his head and wincing at the way his fingertips came away coated in blood, and poor Paisley was vomiting onto the grass while Saul-Yin crawled to her aid so that she could hold her hair back. Saul-Yin was so dehydrated that her lips were white and cracked and bleeding, and she was trembling so hard that she collapsed by Paisley’s side, panting for breath. I needed to get them help, but who was going to want to assist us now that I’d let my temper get the better of me?

  ‘I’m sorry…’ I said weakly, gesturing after the girl who was only just now disappearing from view, and nodding in thanks to our youngest guard Ambrose when he went over to Templar’s assistance, keeping his hands up in surrender. ‘I honestly didn’t mean to upset anyone, and I certainly didn’t mean to attack that man-’

  ‘I know you didn’t, Prince Barachiel,’ the older Companion said, side-stepping around two of my men and making a beeline for me, wearing a radiant smile that did not make sense under the circumstances. The pirate watched her move towards me looking as incredulous as I felt, but she shot him a loaded look that clearly said: ‘I’ll handle this,’ and he made a frustrated noise and stepped back, holding up his hands. ‘And we certainly didn’t mean to put you on the defensive. I can see, plain as day, that you’ve pushed over the edge of reason during your journey, and you can be certain that King Raphael will receive you more warmly than our guards have.’ She came to a stop in front of me, clasping her hands together, and gave me a pleading look. ‘Please, understand that we have heard about Calliel’s troubles, and we have been going to great lengths to make sure that we stay as removed from the situation as possible- that means being careful about who we let through the gates, lest we should accidentally allow in a band of evil pirates, a group of desperate soldiers- or one of Satan’s mercenaries, like the one that infiltrated your own kingdom not long ago.’

  I stood up straighter, mindful of the fact that the redheaded pirate was now watching me like a hawk. Like so many other people I’d met, his attitude towards me had seemingly soured when he’d realised that I had no memories of my criminal hist
ory, and had gone from being full of assurances, to full of poison- taking it upon himself to rub in what a jerk I had been seeing as how my mind had spared me the self-realisation. ‘Has she tried to come here? Larkin of Eden, I mean?’

  But the courtesan shook her head. ‘No, your highness, she has not, and we thank God for that every day.’ She stepped forward and rubbed my shoulder. ‘But that is a heavy subject to discuss while you look like you’re apt to be knocked over by a feather. Please, accompany us up to the castle and I will get you an audience with the king, all right? I’m sure he can answer your questions and convince you of his legitimacy much more eloquently than I can and after that, we’ll see to getting you something to eat and finding somewhere for you and your soldiers to sleep tonight, though judging by the look of them, most probably are going to wind up in the hospital.’

  The woman had taken it upon herself to soothe me and though I was aware of the fact that she was buttering me up, I was more than happy to be manipulated so because it felt like an eternity since a stranger had last smiled at me with such kindness in their eyes. She was right to say that my soldiers needed hospitalisation too- every one of them was suffering from dehydration, exhaustion and exposure, and almost every one of them had some sort of serious injury. Saul-Yin had fared the best because she was used to going a long time without food thanks to her tiny appetite, but she couldn’t go any length of time without water and was drying up like old paper. Theodore was our largest, fittest guard, but his massive frame had made it harder for him to navigate through the patches of Wildwoods that we’d been forced to clear a path through more than anyone, so he was covered in lacerations from the thorns and lying on the grass with an arm slung over his face to protect himself from the sun’s glare.